I have a Trail Designs Sidewinder Ti-Tri for the Evernew/REI .9L pot. I've been making coffee with it at home on top of the stove in the alcohol mode--with the vent fan on. The other day I forgot to use the titanium tent stakes that came with the kit and put the pot directly on top of the cone just like the conventional Caldera Cones. This puts the pot 1/2 inch closer to the stove than it normally would be. This is not the method approved by Trail Designs. The stove actually works this way, and in fact, seems to be more thrifty with fuel. I'm getting consistent boils of 2 1/2 cups of water using 1/2 oz of fuel, where before it would take 3/4 oz of fuel. That's a pretty significant difference. Has any one else had this experience?

If you have a ULC style one, you can replace the stakes with a silicone band that you leave in place on the pot - simpler and lighter.

With the Sidewinder, you can indeed just have it lower and you'll get more fuel efficient burns in exchange for a longer wait (to a certain point). Better yet though, replace the 12-10 stove with a shorter stove (ie. Zelph's Starlyte with pot support removed) and you can retain the fast boil times. Specifics vary, but you normally need to a add a few extra hole punches around the base of the cone to get optimum speed from the Starlyte.

The other advantages of the Starlyte are that the wicking material makes it far easier to light in cold conditions, you can't spill fuel and without the pot support you can use a snap on lid (available from Zelph) to store fuel in the stove so there's no need to measure and waste and/or recover fuel after.

I actually used my Ti-Tri (non-sidewinder) in wood-burning mode without tent stakes (seems to be a big no-no...) the other day by accident. Had no issues other than a lot of soot. But there's normally a fair bit anyway.

I've tried the Ti-Tri with a 1300ml Evernew pot.Without stakes, it doesn't work well at all with wood. (forgot the stakes one time)With alcohol, I saw little or no change without stakes (with a 1300ml pot).

I - being an alcohol newbie and generally all around technologically inept - didn't know I was supposed to use the stakes with the caldera cone and 12-10 alcohol stove. I have the 900ml evernew short/wide pot. Could not for the life of me get 2 cups of water to boil in my kitchen (I was using everclear). 1 oz, burned out, the water barely bubbled.

Then I read the directions.

With the stakes it worked just fine, I was able to get 2 cups to boil with about 3/4 oz...but then that meant I had to bring the stakes along. Thanks to all you fine folks who make me buy more stuff, I got the modified starlyte, which is shorter and smaller than the 12-10, and now I can get 2 cups to boil with a half ounce of denatured alcohol...and no stakes. Which means it all fits in the pot!! No more extra stuff to carry!!!

In my kitchen (trying it in the field next weekend) I was able to get 2 cups cold tap water to boil in about 7:30 mins with 1/2 ounce of denatured alcohol. It kept boiling for 12 mins before it burned out.

The starlyte is a smaller profile and seems to work very well in the cone without the stakes.

A stove certainly could produce more CO if it were starved of oxygen. On the other hand, if fuel consumption is relatively normal (or drops), and boil times extend, then probably what's happening is that one is just slowing the boil down. Of course, it would be nice to have a CO measuring device, but I wouldn't automatically assume more CO is being produced.

Interestingly, Trail Designs has come out with a device designed to slow down their 12-10 burner: a simmer ring that fits over the air inlets on the stoves. They were showing it at the recent GGG at Henry Coe State Park. I ran it. It had a long, slow burn, and baked a muffin in my Ti-Tri set up.

I recently did a bunch of testing to compare the 12-10 in various modes with the Starlyte in various modes. (The thread is around here on BPL, somewhere.) One that I tried was the 12-10 without the tent stakes, as you describe. I use one of the short/wide Evernew .9L pots. And, yes, it worked just fine. I had the opposite effect from you, though- I got a slightly faster boil time while using trivially more fuel.

I'm at 7000 feet elevation, so I'm sure that the leanness of the burn changes things somehow.

I'm also sure that the efficiency of doing this vary considerably depending upon what make of pot you use- some certainly hang lower than others.